"A fractal, deformed, polyhedral novel, a writing of delirium that portrays a disordered, shaken, out-of-bounds thought; a house of mirrors made of language." 

This is how Almadía publishers describe Isla Partida, the novel with which Mexican writer Daniela Tarazona won the prestigious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz literary prize at the FIL Guadalajara 2022.

The novel is "about a woman who suffers from a neurological disorder, and, in that transit, the writing is conceived as an unfolding of the character," explained the author herself in an interview with EFE.

One woman goes to die on an island, and the other decides to make "a kind of revaluation of her past, of childhood stories, of memories, to understand where she has been forged and try to find her own clue," added Tarazona, who will receive the award when the FIL Guadalajara begins on Nov. 26.

"Daniela Tarazona's aesthetic appeals to the profound, to the power of evocation in literature," the jury said in a statement. "In the narrative written in Spanish, she distinguishes herself as a new combination of poetic language with the intimate experiences she relates. To recognize the cosmos present in his work is to glimpse the faith of a coherent, pure and incorruptible proposal."

Tarazona  is also the author of the novels El animal sobre la piedra (2008) and El beso de la liebre (2012), which was a finalist for the Las Américas Prize in Puerto Rico the following year. In 2020 she released the book Clarice Lispector. La mirada en el jardín, in collaboration with Nuria Mel.

The Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Award, endowed with $10,000, is a recognition of the literary work of women and the publication of a novel originally in Spanish, was conceived by the Nicaraguan writer Milagros Palma, within the framework of the Guadalajara Book Fair, and has been awarded since 1993.

In 2019 and 2020 the winners of the outstanding award were Argentines María Gainza (for La luz negra and Camila Sosa Villada (for Las malas), respectively. At last year's edition, the recognition went to the Uruguay's Fernanda Trías (for Mugre rosa).